Profit - That ever elusive end goal we are all searching for. I’m sure to many of you profit is simply what Wikipedia defines it as:
“Profit generally is the making of gain in business activity for the benefit of the owners of the business”.
Makes sense to the business side of my brain.
But I’d like to change that up a bit, and talk about profit as more than just positive income. I think that any gain in life, personal and professional, can be a profit. And when you understand how every gain in your life affects your entire being, you’ll understand the importance of learning to set goals and follow them through.
So get your journals out, turn the TV off, and don’t think about your emails piling up.
In order to really get what you want, you first need to define what is really important to you. Decide now what profit means to YOU, and be as clear and exact as you can. If you are unclear about what you are looking for in your career, or any area of your life, how can you expect to achieve it? This is perhaps the most important thing you can ever do for not only your business, but yourself as well. Talk to any successful person on the planet, and they will tell you that they knew, long before they achieved their success, what they wanted.
Once you have figured out what matters to you, you then write out what needs to be done in order for you to achieve those goals. Every contact you must meet, every action you must take – even figuring out “bumps in the road”; all of that should be thought through before you begin you journey! Think of this as a long road trip – you need to figure out where you want to go and how to get there before you pack the car up! Otherwise you will end up “driving” aimlessly around the big picture.
Once you sit down and envision what you want to achieve, you begin to move quickly towards you goals. Just taking that first step leads to unstoppable momentum, so you better be ready to start achieving!
Every day you should at least do a little something that will lead toward your goals. This will create habit, making you feel the need to do something everyday. Of course the opposite is true. If you take one day off, then it will be that much easier to take the next day off, then the next and so on. So make today the day to start….and don’t ever stop!
As you being to cross goals off your list, don’t forget to reflect about what you have accomplished in the past. Think about all the times you set out to do something – a new sport, new job, college- and think about all the ways you were able to achieve those past goals. Besides giving you more confidence in yourself, these past goals may also help you to get past those sticky spots. Then expand this to think about what you can do in the next year, 5 years, 10 years that would have huge impacts on your profits.  This may sound like the last step, but with goals, you should always be reevaluating what you want and how to get it! Life is full of changes and curve balls, and our priorities are always shifting. So don’t just sit down one time and plan your life out. Do this often. Set dates on your calendar to “check-in” with yourself.
And I can’t stress enough that this process is all about progress, NOT perfection. You’re not going to achieve every goal right away. But you can’t get frustrated. The key here is to always be moving forward- especially if you feel like you’re moving backwards. As long as you are getting out there and staying true to yourself, there can’t really be any mistakes in life. It just may be that the path has changed a little bit –but that doesn’t’ mean that you won’t get to the end! As I mentioned in a previous entry, failing only give us the opportunity to start again, but with a lot more insight!
